I can't breath!
The air feels trapped around me.It is breathtaking,the lake is.
I feel like I am magically taken aback to 48 years ago when Ojukwu the Great War hero of the Igbo land was still active,building the bunker for his army here in Oguta lake,trying to prepare against the" enemies" of a Biafra that would never live for a long time during the Nigeria civil war.
Somehow,it seems to me like I've being here.The landscape looks so familiar and my mind keeps bringing images of war front,I see soldiers everywhere,loud shouts fills my ear and the smell of gun powder so potent it fills my nostril.The new golf course is no longer here and the pine hotel fades into a dirt filled untamed shrubs.
Then it dawned on me that I'm no longer in the lake as it is and Johnny who brought me here has suddenly vanished from my view.
I'm caught between two periods I realize and I can't remember ever having a major case of déjà vu mixed with a high dose of hallucination without any alcohol in my system.I'm scared because the images won't go away and my heart is racing fast like I've taken several shots of adrenaline.Everything is happening on slow motion.
The only thing I want to do is to escape this place and I begin to wonder where Johnny is.
My back hair is rising like someone is staring at me and then I turn around to see a young soldier who has this noticeable wound below his left rib cage, about 5'6 in height,his jaw set and the muscles around his shoulders rigid.Amidst the noise and loud chattering his gaze is fixed on me without wavering.My heart did a double skip when He looked deadly familiar.So familiar that he looked like me!
"Chioma!"that's Johnny's voice.
Whoa! I did sleep off in the bunker (which I can't remember entering)and I wonder what just happened to me.My hand automatically goes down to the spot below my left rib cage where I have a scar that my parent can't explain.
This isn't the first time of me going to the lake but with this occurrence I have the ancient understanding of facts that will never be described with words.
As tears flows down my eye this moment.I try to blot out what I just experienced but the memory of the unwavering stare of the soldier wouldn't go away.
